The president of the world-renowned Sorbonne University has branded French students protesting about the country's new employment law "ignorant and stupid".

Reacting to protests over the law, which makes it easier for employers to fire, and therefore presumably more willing to hire, young workers, Jean-Robert Pitte said the youngsters had no dreams but believed everything was due to them as a right without having to work for it.

"I'm very angry about the demagogy, the ignorance and the stupidity of the young and of the French," said Dr Pitte, 56, a geography professor who has taught at Oxford and Cambridge and holds the Légion d'honneur.

"Today's youth don't have dreams, they have illusions. To dream is to want to accomplish something difficult that is a challenge. Instead youngsters believe they have a right to everything and if things don't go the way they want it's someone else's fault."

France is bracing itself for widespread trouble tomorrow when a national strike has been called against the controversial Contrat de Première Embauche - the First Employment Contract - which entered the statute books yesterday. A similar day of action last week ended in violent clashes between protesters and riot police.

The measure, the brainchild of the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, aims to relieve the country's debilitating level of youth unemployment. It brings in a work contract for the under-26s that allows them to be dismissed without cause during the first two years on the job.

On Friday President Jacques Chirac agreed to pass the new law but ordered immediate modifications to soften its impact. The opposition Socialist party, union leaders and angry students rejected this compromise.

Dr Pitte, whose comments were published in the respected weekly news magazine Le Point, blamed "irresponsible" public debate for stoking the violence.

"They say: Oh, these poor students! Of course they have a right to an open-ended work contract! It's absurd," he told Le Point. "Who is going to tell these youngsters the truth? Get real." He added that tens of thousands of students were taking degrees in subjects with no relevance to the employment market but were then demanding jobs linked to their studies.

"It's true that someone in England who leaves Oxford with a degree in Chinese can work in marketing, but they learn their job as they go along and must prove themselves.

"I know people will say I'm a horrible reactionary but I'm very angry about the ignorance and the stupidity not just of youngsters but of the French because we have the youth we deserve."

The Sorbonne, which was at the centre of the celebrated student unrest of May 1968, has been closed and sealed off for weeks after riot police ejected students occupying buildings. An estimated million euros (£700,000) of damage has been done to the university on Paris's left bank.

The French government is due to hold an emergency meeting this morning to discuss the crisis caused by the new law and consider changes to it demanded by the president.

Mr Chirac said he wanted amendments to shorten the time a new recruit could be dismissed to one year and forcing employers to explain why a youngster is being sacked. He wanted them introduced "as fast as possible", but it is unlikely that the modified law could be prepared and presented to the Assemblée Nationale before next month.

Yesterday Mr De Villepin, who is in the running to succeed Mr Chirac as president next year, admitted he had made mistakes with the new law. But he denied he had been hung out to dry by the president.

In an interview with the Journal du Dimanche he described Mr Chirac's modifications as "right and respectful".

"He showed his determination by signing off the law. But he also showed his openness and his desire to respond to youngster's fears".